Michigan Living: Winter Week 27

Welcome to the Third trimester...

... wait, hang on- nobody's pregnant (well, somebody's pregnant somewhere, but it's not one of us!), we've just entered our 27th week of Michigan Living and we're still alive! Not only are we still living but we're still LOVING it as well!


~Weather Update~

If you're following the national weather trends you probably keep hearing about how it's unseasonably warm on much of this end of the country. We'd like to say "you're welcome" for bringing a little CA sunshine with us, and invite you to freely participate in God's sparing us from a bone freezing first winter. Please don't feel any obligation, but financial gifts are always welcome!



~The Big Event~

So the big deal this week: we are the parents of a teen and a tween. Danielle turned 11 on Sunday and that means that she has entered the world of tweendom. Danielle chose to go to a local paint-your-own pottery place (you might remember it from Rebekah's 13th b-day party!), which meant 3 hours of pottery painting for the Carter ladies and 3 hours of Texas Hold-Em on the Blackberry for Chris.








Then all hell broke loose! You see, since the dawn of time we've had this agreement that we don't tell restaurant employees that it's our birthday-- that way nobody is embarrassed by loud, obnoxious birthday songs sung to you by total strangers. Well, Danielle's a different beast (at this point the DNA tests are inconclusive...) and all she wanted was for the Red Robin employees to sing to her... of course the free hot fudge Sunday might have been more what she was after, but she was totally willing to take the birthday song abuse in order to get to the dessert. Go figure!














~What's Up With the Youth Group?~




I don't typically put a ton of stuff about Student Life at Northpointe on here because we're really tracking our Michigan adventure, but since a number of you have been asking here's a taste of what Chris has been up to:





New name/Wednesday::group/Sunday Morning Middle School::group/
Sunday Night High School::group/Fall Bash/lessons series/two bands/1
intern/drama/phone calls/developing relationship/parents/wrist bands/
new set up/building project/broken stuff/free air hockey table/small
groups/High School LIFE::groups/intern leaves/Youth Team/new Creative
Arts Team/recruit volunteers/teaching training/tech nightmares/computer
crash/systems galore/Cafe/networking/Elder meetings/parent meetings/
light construction/serious destruction/encouraging people/
loving people/being with people/getting to know people/Jesus


~Oldie But Goodie~

I know this is a little old, but I just found this video of something we went to in early December. It's filmed over the Capitol building in Lansing and was actually pretty awesome (PS: That's not us talking in the video, but the folks standing next to us... sooooo, yaaaahhh...)

Michigan Living: Winter Weeks 25-26

WOW! Christmas flew by-- New Years flew by-- and it's only about 20 degrees outside!

Christmas Stuff:

Rebekah had her Holiday Choir concert- filled with all your holiday favorites like "Your a Mean One Mr. Grinch", "Sleigh Bells", "Holiday Romance" (What?), and an acapella rendition of "Carol of the Bells".



We also went to the Jackson County Fairgrounds to drive through a couple miles of lighted fairgrounds. Check out the video...







We spent Christmas Eve at Potter Park Zoo, which is free and desolate during the winter. The weather was sunny and 40 degrees, and the girls made good friends with the monkeys. Check out the video...



New Years Eve was spent in a massive Just Dance 3 party at our house, which was made up of three female and one male Carter. EPIC! (And no video!)

And the weather continually creeps colder and colder... last night the temps were about 15 degrees with a wind chill of 0-- that's pretty cold, eh? Not a lot of snow --yet (at least that's what the locals keep saying)-- but any flurry we get Chris or Em jump in the car to practice their snow driving. So far the biggest lesson we learned is that Michiganders slow down for nothing. It could be the middle of blizzard with roads iced over and folks would still be going 5 miles over the speed limit. I've never been the 'slow old man holding up traffic' before, but I'm wearing it pretty well right now!

MIchigan Living: Winter Weeks 23-24

So here's the latest happenings in the Carter wanderings






-----Bronners Christmas Emporium-----
Apparently the largest Christmas store on the planet is in a Bavarian styled town called Frankenmuth (sounds like something you get from poor oral hygiene, right?). The name of the store is Bronners and is open 364 days of the year-- oddly enough it's closed on Christmas... So there we headed to get the annual family ornament; something that reflects our adventure for the year. So we found a darling glass bulb with the shape of Michigan painted on it, that the overly friendly Bronner's staff even personalized for us. We took great care getting it home safely, and as one of the ladies (who will remain nameless) was attempting to take the small tag off of it, she dropped it on the table and it shattered into a thousand pieces... oh, well--











---NCC Staff Christmas Party--
We got to be part of our first Northpointe Community Church staff Christmas party... food, friends, fun, and White elephant Gift Exchange. Cool stuff-- all in a beautiful MI style home with icy roads and snow on the porch! We love this place!





-----Snow and Ice-----



Question: Can ice form on rubber?
Answer: Apparently yes... at least on those little nubs on the side of tires-- the proof is in the picture!






-----Anniversary-----



We have been married for 16 years-- which is a long time to do just about anything... so in celebration we went to a local steak house and celebrated by eating way too much red meat followed by tinnnnnyyyyy desserts...








-----IPhone 3Gs-----



...Verizon customers eat your hearts out-- we got Emily a new cell phone (yep, it's the older Iphone 3Gs- but way better than what she was using) and it only cost $1.05.
...California customers eat your heart out-- in MI you don't pay the sales tax on new phones based on the regular price, only on the actual price (in other words, in CA we would have paid an extra $30ish in tax because the MSRP of the phone is $375. In MI the price of the phone was $.99 so we only paid a total of $1.05). Let's hear it for MI!!!!!



-----Snow Report-----
So not really too much snow since the initial 1 foot dump and power outage. We had a weekend of flurries and a total accumulation of around an inch-- which mainly meant that it snowed pretty consistently during the day but didn't stick much to the ground (by the way: why does snow melt so quickly from asphalt? Seemed to be gone awfully fast but stayed on every other surface for much longer... any ideas?) So we spent the day Christmas shopping at Target...




All in all Winter hasn't killed us yet. I realize the typical response to this is "Wait 'til February..." Well, we're waiting, but I have this feeling we'll be just as fine then as we are now! And right now we're praying for a White Christmas!

Michigan Living Week 22... and a half

So Emily here and I am blogging mid week because I had one of the coolest experiences today and couldn't wait to tell everyone about it!!!

I have been attending a weekly women's bible study, and during our prayer time we have been praying for a 3rd grader named Autumn who is blind because she has a brain tumor. They can't operate but are trying to get shrink it by using really strong chemo that racks her body, making her really sick. My heart was so touched and burdened for her, I really wanted to do something to encourage her. I decided to have the group write her notes of encouragement on 3x5 cards and then I would braille each one so she could read them (as many of you know I have been taking a braille transcribing course for about a year). So the cool thing is I was invited today to go out and meet Autumn to deliver the brailled cards to her. What a beautiful angel from God. She is the sweetest little girl I have ever met. To look and talk to her your wouldn't know she was sick or struggling. She was so excited to meet me and even more excited to read the cards. It was so awesome to stand there and watch her read something that I brailled!!! I also got to meet her aide and after talking to her I have decided that what she does everyday is exactly what I want to do. So now I am praying that God brings me my own Autumn to work with when I am ready!!!

Michigan Living Week 22: Winter For Real!

So this was the week of super adventure in our winter wonderland!

Tuesday it snowed-- and apparently not just a regular snow, this was a good one...





...the official report was 10", but when it comes up to your calf that has to be 12" at least. Not only did it snow, but the weight of the snow took out a number of tree branches which apparently are built over electrical power lines to break the fall of the branch when it comes crashing down. However, one of the side effects of having power lines break the branches fall is that they tear the line from the pole, which we learned means the electricity cannot get past that point-- like to our house. And on a side note: when the water to your house runs on a well, which apparently is powered by electricity, it also goes out. So all that to say about 24 hours without power or water...



... but it was absolutely amazing! Tons of space with pure, untouched, pristine snow. Enough for sledding, sloshing, fighting, and snow man building! And the girls even got a snow day out of it-- and on the very first day of snow for the year too!



...and Emily and Christ got to practice their newly acquired snow driving skills-- nobody died!




Then the week got weird as Chris wrenched his knee somehow (no, the good one!) followed by Danielle getting pink-eye from some kid in her class (arrrrrgggghhhhh...)

But by Sunday we are all normal again-- or at least as close to normal as we will ever get! In all an awesome week! Bring on winter!

Michigan Living Week 21: Winter

This was a super short week with Thanksgiving and all...



Wednesday was the beginning of Thanksgiving break for DeWitt kids, so we headed down to Royal Scott bowling alley and bowled a few games, ate pizza, and drank pop (yep, we say pop now... well, Rebekah doesn't because she refuses to adapt to the culture-- just wait, they'll get her!) While Chris dominated with his amazing bowling prowess (is that a positive quality? Cause Fred Flinstone was also a good bowler and not sure anyone wants compared to him?!?) Danielle came a close second-- which totally caused Emily and Rebekah to fall into a deep depression that only massive amounts of turkey could solve! Which is how the rest of the week was spent!










And while we did not get up uber-early for Black Friday, wee did join a local gym who had a cheap Black Friday special sign up deal-- so back to running on treadmills, lifting weights, and showering with odd old men (Chris not Emily... wait, not sure if that's any better...hmmm)

Michigan Living Week 20: Winter

Well, we made it through another week of winter... and so far we're not dead. We had a few snow flurries which got us all excited, but then didn't actually stick. As a matter of fact it isn't even really that cold. The days have been floating between 32-48 degrees, and the evenings... well, we are inside the house during the evenings so who cares!



This week also gave us the opportunity for our first Lansing Silver Bells... the annual lighting of the 100 foot tall Christmas tree at the steps of the state capital. So us and 10,000 other people piled along Michigan Avenue to see a light parade, watch a tree light up, watch some fireworks over the capital (actually VERY cool!), and listen to some Disney kid named Cody Simpson sing (listen to because it was impossible to see him). The weather even cooperated by not going much lower than 40 degrees and we were thermal-ed up in our winter best.

















Saturday was another awesome day! Northpointe Community Church has their monthly 3rd Serve- which this time involved buying a Thanksgiving dinner for a family in need and delivering it to them. So we hooked up with some friends of ours and hit up two houses. What a cool way to be reminded of all the things we have to be thankful for!


And now we're looking forward to a short week of school and a long weekend of sleeping in!



Happy Thanksgiving blog readers!